


A Necessary Sacrifice

by Akiko_Natsuko



Series: Reaper76 [77]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Betrayal, Blood and Violence, M/M, Sacrifice, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22929112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiko_Natsuko/pseuds/Akiko_Natsuko
Summary: Gabriel found himself hesitating outside the interrogation room. For the first time that he could remember he didn’t want to step inside the room, or at least not in his current role. But that wasn’t a choice, and with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach he opened the door and stepped inside, closing it firmly behind him, before turning to face the room’s sole occupant.Jack Morrison smirked at him as he leant back as far as he could in the chair. “Hello Gabriel, I was expecting you a while ago…” As though, this was just a typical day with Gabriel coming to visit him in his office. As though Jack wasn’t walking on a knife-edge that could see him imprisoned or worse.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: Reaper76 [77]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1188655
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	A Necessary Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AceOfSpades22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfSpades22/gifts).



> Please note that if you want to talk to me about my fics and writing, or anime/shows/games in general then you can now find me on discord [The Unholy Trinity](https://discord.gg/jdpcfy6XTB).

Gabriel found himself hesitating outside the interrogation room, one hand on the handle. For the first time that he could remember he didn’t want to step inside the room, or at least not in his current role. But that wasn’t a choice, and he knew that if he didn’t move now, then he would lose any chance to stop this situation from unravelling completely. So, with a deep breath, and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach he opened the door and stepped inside, closing it firmly behind him, before turning to face the room’s sole occupant.

Jack Morrison smirked at him as he leant back as far as he could in the chair. “Hello Gabriel, I was expecting you a while ago…” As though, this was just a typical day with Gabriel coming to visit him in his office. As though Jack wasn’t walking on a knife-edge that could see him imprisoned or worse, depending on what he said and how Gabriel was able to handle the situation. Jack had always been able to get under his skin like nobody else, it was part of the reason they had worked so well together because he needed someone who could challenge and push him, and Jack had needed someone to keep him in line. A task that Gabriel had failed at spectacularly given their current situation and frustration bubbled up before he could stop it.

“What the hell were you thinking, Jack?”

“Morrison?” Jack corrected.

“Pardon?”

“You’re here to interrogate me aren’t you,” Jack asked with a raised eyebrow, looking utterly calm even though he was still dressed in the filthy, blood-stained clothing he’d been arrested in, and chained to the desk with cuffs that had been developed with SEP strength in mind. In fact, he looked as collected, and bored as he did in the tedious meetings they usually had to sit through, and it made Gabriel uneasy. “I wouldn’t think familiarity was a good idea right now, especially with all those pesky eyes on us.” Jack tilted his head towards the wall where the viewing window was, staring knowingly at the dark glass, before shifting his attention back to Gabriel, who was scowling. Gabriel wanted to disagree, to point out that he didn’t care what the brass thought about him, but he bit back the words because as much as he hated to admit it, he knew that Jack was right. Familiarity right now might destroy him, and as he was currently the only one standing in Jack’s corner, he couldn’t let that happen, it didn’t stop the frustration from bleeding through as he corrected himself though.

“Fine, Morrison…” Gabriel took a moment to collect himself, as this wasn’t the Jack, he’d expected to find waiting for him. He’d expected him to at least be concerned about his fate, if not outright panicking because he had to realise there was no way he was going to be able to walk away from this unscathed, but the man facing him was utterly relaxed, and seemingly amused by the situation. He set the file he had been carrying down on the table with more force than necessary as he finally took his seat opposite him, blue eyes tracking his every movement, Jack tilting his head to one side as he studied the file. Sensing, or perhaps hoping for an opening, or a weakness that might force Jack to realise the gravity of the situation, he flipped the file open, letting the photos spill out over the desk, careful not to look at them himself. “Do you want to explain what happened here, Morrison?”

“Why don’t you tell me, Commander Reyes?” Jack suggested, eyes on the photos, but his expression hadn’t changed, and Gabriel just stared at him for a long moment, studying him, searching for a crack in the act. Where was the guilt? The burden of the lives that he had taken for apparently no reason if witnesses were to be believed? Where was the man that Gabriel had fought alongside for so long, and watched shoulder the weight of each and every life taken or lost? There was nothing. Instead, Jack lifted his other eyebrow and stared back before sighing dramatically. “No? Fine.” He leaned forward, eyes too bright and teeth bared in a snarl, no longer smiling, but a dangerous animal staring him down. “I killed them. Murdered them, I’m sure the press and our beloved superiors are saying.” The bitterness in that last bit was at least familiar, as Gabriel had watched as Jack was worn down by the job and the pressures it brought. There was small comfort in that being the only point of familiarity, and he fought to match Jack’s calmness with his own.

“Why?” He had a whole list of questions, most of them belonging to the people watching through the window, but this was his question and the most important in his mind. If he could just understand why Jack Morrison appeared to have snapped and killed eight people that as far as Blackwatch had been able to determine hadn’t been embroiled in anything illegal, then maybe he would be able to see a way out of this mess that wouldn’t result in Jack being locked away for life or killed.

“Why?” Jack echoed, as though confused before he turned blazing eyes on the window. “I suppose it was too much to think you would tell the truth at this point. I wonder if any of you even know what ‘truth’ is anymore?”

“J…Morrison?”

There was a worrying groan from the table, as for the first time, Jack wrenched on the restraints, looking as though he wanted nothing more than to go for their audience. Gabriel had to repeat the question several times, before Jack’s attention snapped back to him, and it took all his strength not to flinch back under the force of the glare. _Who is this?_ This couldn’t be Jack. He had seen the other man furious and caught by battle fever in the middle of a firefight, but never this raw fury and bloodlust, as though Jack was considering him an enemy at that moment. Abruptly Jack flopped back, tilted his head back and laughed. It was an awful sound, as devoid of mirth as it could be, and Gabriel was beginning to wonder if he had snapped and that he had missed the signs, guilt gnawing at him, but before he could say anything, Jack fell silent, breathing heavily as he stared up at the ceiling for another minute before finally letting his head fall forward so that he could stare at Gabriel.

“I do listen to your warnings, you know?” Jack started almost conversationally, as though he hadn’t just casually thrown their long-running disagreement into the mess. “The threats on my life. Talon, and more importantly your suspicion that we had a mole…or maybe that should be moles, within Overwatch.”

“Are you saying…?”

“Do I need to spell it out?” Jack demanded, angry again, and Gabriel swallowed. Jack had been hauled down here as soon as he was found standing in the middle of his office. Surrounded by bodies and covered in the blood of the eight agents he had apparently just slaughtered. The blood had since dried, and the smears on his cheek, a bruise forming around one eye and a split lip, only served to make his anger shine all the brighter. “I took care of the problem.” There was a fervour to his words that had Gabriel’s stomach churning as he realised that Jack wholly, truly believed in what he had done. He wasn’t guilty or remorseful, because he thought that he had done the right thing, and he closed his eyes before speaking quietly.

“They weren’t Talon agents, Jack…” He had a file on those that he was watching, a dozen leads connecting them to Talon directly, or to one of the tens of umbrella groups that worked to keep Talon out of the public eye. He’d been waiting, making an iron-clad case against each one before bringing it to Jack, because these were men and women they had worked and fought with for years now, people they had trusted, and he’d wanted to be sure. Now, he wished that he had never waited. “I have a list of…”

“Suspects, I know.” Jack finished for him, and Gabriel blinked at him, caught off guard again. “All those leads and clues, you were very thorough, but did it never occur to you that they were too obvious?”

“Obvious?” Gabriel bristled, not at the questioning of his work, but at the thought of Jack dismissing the agents they had lost to obtain some of that information. Jack didn’t seem troubled by his anger. Instead, his gaze travelled back to the observation window, and he tilted his head, almost as though he could see through it, and the smile that crept across his lips was anything but pleasant.

“I have to commend your efforts, you managed to pull the wool over the eyes of one of the cleverest men I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet,” Jack said, voice carrying clearly as he added smugly. “But it wasn’t enough.” He seemed to be waiting for something because his shoulders slumped and he shook his head, and turned back to Gabriel, and leaned forward. “For what it’s worth, I do regret their deaths, but it was necessary, after all, no one can resist a front-row seat to the fall of their biggest obstacle, and what better way to cut one of the heads of the snake?” A terrible suspicion stirred as Gabriel’s gaze shifted from the unrepentant Jack to the window, just as the intercom crackled.

“End this farce Commander Reyes, before…” The threat was lost as somewhere up above their heads; they all heard a deep, muffled boom, and the room itself seemed to shake. Gabriel braced himself against the desk, just as he heard Jack beginning to laugh again, this time a triumphant cackle that was an eerie counterpart to the sound of a second and third boom from above.

“What the hell have you done, Jack?” He snarled as he leapt to his feet and turned away, intending to rush to the door as the building shook under the force of what he realised now was explosions. However, he had barely gone half a step before Jack had lunged forward, the left-hand cuff falling away, as he caught hold of Gabriel and yanked him back. Furious Gabriel turned on him, punching him with enough force to break his nose, but it wasn’t enough to force Jack to let him go, the other man grappling him and pulling him back with a snarl of his own.

“I told you, I’m cutting the head off the snake…and I don’t intend to let them take you down with them,” Jack ground out, grip tightening, and even though he was happened by the cuff that was still attached it was clear that he meant business. Gabriel’s mind was racing even as he fought to get free, and it was only as the ceiling shook again but showed no weakness that it dawned on him why they down here, in one of the few rooms in Zurich that had been designed to contain super-strength soldiers and Omnics, and therefore reinforced to withstand anything bar an explosion within its own four walls. He would have almost been impressed with Jack’s strategy, especially as he realised that the room where the audience – most of the brass, bar Petras who had refused to involve himself in this matter, were waiting – wasn’t reinforced in the same way, were it not for the other horrific realisation that dawned on him as there was a loud crash in the distance.

“And what about the other people, Jack? The people who aren’t involved in this mess?” He demanded, renewing his efforts to escape, as he thought about just how many people were housed in the base right now – men and women who had done nothing wrong, beyond choosing to believe in Overwatch and Jack Morrison. Jack, who had gone still, grip remaining tight and who sounded closer to himself than he had at any other point since Gabriel had entered the room.

“Most will escape,” he replied. “I was careful about where I set the explosives, and we’ve drilled for this…” Gabriel had forgotten the sudden insistence on drills over the last few months. At the time he had hoped that it was a sign that Jack was taking his warnings seriously, now he realised that Jack been plotting this for a long time. That every step of this mess, and every life Jack had taken and was currently taking as the building rumbled again, had been premediated. A fact brought home by Jack’s next words stated with a lack of emotion, that was a little too easy. A little too practised. “The rest are a necessary sacrifice.”


End file.
